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Bullet To The Head - DVD Review

Review by Rob Carnevale

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IndieLondon Rating: 2 out of 5

THE union of director Walter Hill and action icon Sylvester Stallone in an old school buddy action movie ought to have been a mouth-watering prospect. Alas, Bullet To The Head fails to come even remotely close to expectations.

Rather, it’s a dull mix of violence and cliche that has very little going for it. Indeed, were it not for the belated box office muscle afforded to it’s leading man by the success of his Expendables franchise, this may have gone straight to DVD.

The plot had room for fun too. Ageing hitman James Bonomo (Stallone) is forced to team up with a fish out of water cop, Taylor Kwon (Fast & Furious star Sung Kang) to take on a ruthless crime boss (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) after being double crossed following a hit and targeted by ruthless assassin Keegan (Jason Momoa).

It goes without saying that the mis-matched partners rub each other up the wrong way, with Stallone’s old school assassin at odds with Kang’s modern style (he does most of his detecting using a mobile phone). And that’s not to mention the conflict that stems from Bonomo’s desire to kill those who lie in his path, which inevitably gives Kwon a conflict of interest.

Hill cut his teeth on classic thrillers such as 48 Hours and Extreme Prejudice but his return to the big screen after 10 years fails to recapture any of his former glories.

Rather, it feels stale, poorly conceived and delivered and almost pedestrian in execution. Stallone and Kang share very little chemistry, the script is flat and even the villains lack depth, charisma or any sense of adversity. Most are despatched pretty easily, giving rise to another problem: the lack of a single decent action sequence.

This feels particularly disappointing by the time the film lumbers towards its big showdown between Stallone and the under-used Momoa, which really does fizzle out.

Bullet To The Head is therefore a very big missed opportunity that’s pretty much DOA.